Computing devices have taken on an expanding role in the daily life of many people. The variety of computing devices nowadays comprises desktop and laptop computers, cellular phones, smartphones, personal digital assistants, tablet computers, e-book readers and mobile players of media such as mp3 players or CD players. These devices possess different sizes of displays depending on their application. The variety of computing devices and their utilization in the daily life are thereby quickly expanding.
Mobile computing devices are increasingly employed by users for private and business applications. These devices are usually handheld devices and increasingly include touch-sensitive displays of various sizes to allow user inputs in a more convenient and more efficient manner. In view of an incorporation of handheld devices in more and more aspects of the daily life, the users demand ease of use in interacting with these devices, while there is an increasing demand for these devices to be wirelessly connected to the Internet or to an intranet.
For instance, certain users or certain aspects of the daily life may require a screen of the computing device to be a touch screen providing a touch-sensitive interface between a user and the computing device. Other circumstances may ask for non-touch-sensitive interfaces. Nevertheless, displayed content is demanded to be easily refreshable. However, certain interactions may not be practical or intuitive for certain users.
There are different approaches employed by current computing devices. For example, a refresh button may be used, which can trigger a refresh of displayed content after a user clicked or touched the button. Furthermore, scroll views may be used, which may force the user to scroll down a list of displayed information. For example, US 2010/0199180 (A1) describes user interface mechanics for pulling down to refresh, which in response to determining, based on a scroll command, that a scrollable refresh trigger has been activated, refreshes a scrollable list of content items.